The present invention is concerned with a method and system for communication between a marine vessel and another location, which may be on land or on another vessel. In particular the invention is a method and system to communicate technical information between a marine vessel and a remote location.
Marine vessels are often located in locations that are not easy-to-reach. Marine vessels are often mobile and may travel to or operate in remote areas of the world. Failures in critical systems such as an engine breakdown or a fault in a positioning system can present serious risks, including risk of fatalities to personnel and damage to the environment. Reliability of systems on a marine vessel are of critical importance. At the same time, offshore and marine industries face a demand from owners and customers to maintain operations at a low cost.
On-board equipment and systems on marine vessels are becoming increasingly complex. Diverse and sophisticated systems are commonly found onboard ships and may include systems such as electrical power management systems, process automation equipment, ventilation equipment, positioning systems, dynamic positioning and position mooring, propulsion control systems, and the like. Maintenance personnel on board normally do not have the competence to diagnose or fix problems related to every system in which a problem may occur. An on-board person may even have difficulties identifying which components need to be replaced and then obtaining spare parts efficiently. In such situations case delays and high costs are involved, especially when technical experts have to travel long distances to reach a marine vessel.
Marine vessels and ships may be equipped with control systems to control various equipment and systems on board which are not unlike industrial control and process control systems used in general manufacturing and other industries. Such control systems advantageously comprise or are in some way linked to maintenance systems to organise, schedule, carry out diagnoses etc. for maintenance of equipment or systems.
A software architecture that is used in an industrial control system manufactured by ABB is described in part by WO00102953 entitled “Method of integrating an application in a computerized system”. WO00102953 discloses a method for integration of many and various types of applications in a computerized system. This method is based on a concept where real world objects are represented as “composite objects”. Different facets of a real world object, such as its physical location, the current stage in a process, a control function, an operator interaction, a simulation model, some documentation about the object, etc., are each described as different aspects of the composite object. A composite object is a container for one or more such aspects. Thus, a composite object is not an object in the traditional meaning of object-oriented systems, but rather a container of references to such traditional objects, which implement the different aspects. Each aspect or group of aspects may be implemented by an independent software application, which provides its functionality through a set of interfaces that are accessible through the composite object. Another software application can thus query a composite object for a function associated with one of its aspects, and as a result obtain through the composite object a reference to the interface that implements the function. Industrial control systems generally comprise, include or are in some way linked to maintenance systems to organise, schedule, diagnosis etc. maintenance of equipment or systems controlled by the control system.
Ordinary computer systems and networked computers are often provided with technical support for application problems, network problems and so on by means of remotely located technical support specialists. Typically a remotely located Help Desk specialist may be contacted by phone, e-mail, intranet or the Internet etc. to assist with a problem of a computerised system. Certain software applications familiar to those skilled in the art of Local Area Networks (LANs) are readily available so that a technical specialist at a remotely located Help Desk may look at a display running on the problematic computer system and input selections or commands as though the specialist were present in person. However, such specialists are only able to assist with computer program or operating system/network operating system i.e. “computer system” problems related to the operations of a specific LAN.
Maintenance personnel on board a marine vessel may use a control system to monitor, control, regulate equipment and or systems installed on, or associated with, the marine vessel. Such a system may contain extensive technical information about the equipment and systems onboard. However, it is difficult to collect information relevant to each configuration of possible onboard equipment, and for all technical eventualities. It is also difficult to keep such complex technical information up to date.
The aim of the present invention is to solve one or more of the above problems. This and other aims are realised by a method according to claim 1, a system according to claim 32, and a computer program product according to claim 40.
It is an aim of the invention to provide a method and system to provide communication between a user onboard a marine vessel and one or more specialists associated with the equipment.
According to an embodiment of the invention, a system is provided for providing a virtual meeting between a user onboard a marine vessel and a supplier's consultant, in which the system comprises an operator workstation, communication means and at least one server software providing a virtual meeting service.
According to another aspect of the invention an interface is provided for communication of technical information between a marine vessel and a remote location.
In another aspect of the invention a computer data signal is provided for communication of technical information between a marine vessel and a remote location.
The principal advantage of the inventive method is that a user such as a maintenance person onboard a marine vessel may show or provide technical information present onboard the vessel to a technical specialist who may be remotely located. In this way virtually instant access to a technical specialist for a given equipment or system may be provided, despite the fact that the marine vessel and the technical specialist may be thousands of kilometers apart. In particular a virtual meeting may be provided in which the set-up of the meeting is carried out by one click on a graphical or textual display of an operator workstation, so that the user can have virtual meeting with a consultant or other technical specialist associated with an equipment supplier or other specialist having technical expertise related to an equipment or system, e.g. a systems integrator. The user or maintenance person does not need to be specialist of each or every equipment or equipment system associated with or installed on the vessel.
Another advantage is the ease of use of the invention in that the user very easily makes contact with the appropriate technical expert without needing special training in communication technologies. In advantageous embodiments of the invention an Asset Optimisation server is included, making all technical information about items of equipment or systems accessible to the participants in the virtual meeting, simply and immediately.
Another advantage of the invention is that many facets of the invention may be implemented using commercially available products and services. The communication elements especially may be carried out using services and products commercially available in the majority of countries and regions of the world. This includes the use of existing satellite communications, and of Internet technologies, such as TCP/IP protocol communications via the Internet, protocol communications that build on top of TCP/IP protocol, or intranets, which enables the real time communication method and system to be implemented economically, using low cost and readily available hardware and software technology.
A more complete understanding of the method and system of the present invention may be had by reference to the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing wherein:
In a first embodiment the invention may be practiced in an exemplary form by means of any computer on or near the marine vessel which is logged in, or otherwise suitably connected, to a means for wireless communication from the marine vessel to land or another location. A user onboard the marine vessel may require technical information from a technical specialist to assist him or her with a particular equipment or service. To obtain more technical information for an equipment or system a user can, by using the method and system of the invention, contact a technical support specialist. Thus a user, who may be any operator, technician, maintenance person or other authorised person on the marine vessel 1010 logs in to a computer connected to a communications means on-board the vessel. The user then starts a communication session, preferably with a single action such as single click of a button on a computer mouse. In the simplest embodiment of the invention the user selects an address for one or more technical specialists from a list of technical specialists maintained in respect of the various equipment and systems on board. The communication session with a predetermined technical specialist at a remote location 1012, is established by means of an instant messaging or conferencing software application. An instance of the instant messaging/conferencing software runs on the logged in computer. The instant messaging/conferencing software starts a communication between the logged in computer on board the marine vessel 1010 and a computer system of the predetermined technical specialist at a remote location such as 1012. The technical specialist can, by this means, obtain a copy of any Graphical User Interface (GUI) that is running on the logged in computer. By this means the technical specialist can receive and monitor technical information in real time from the marine vessel and, amongst other actions, advise the user accordingly.
Such a user on the marine vessel may require assistance in order to carry out a technical action including any of:
The user may use other computer program application software as well as, or in addition to, functions in the logged on computer, or RMC server, or any onboard control program. The user may use applications such as Excel (Trade Mark) for calculations and analysis based on technical information or maintenance issues; a Computer Aided Design (CAD) program such as AutoCad (Trade Mark) to display drawings of an equipment or system, schematics for a wiring layout etc; and/or a scheduling program for operations of equipment or maintenance schedules for the equipment, and so on.
The method according to the invention is based on solving the problem that a user may require technical information from a technical specialist to assist him or her with a particular equipment or service. To obtain more technical information for an equipment or system a user can, by using the method and system of the invention, contact a technical support specialist, as described above.
At step 1595 the contact address may be derived in several possible ways:
In practice any address list will be handled such that the system attempts to reach the addresses in a predetermined order or priority. Thus, if the first address found that satisfies the priority order does not work, the second is address is tried and so on.
The user logged in to a computer makes a selection from a diagram, table, menu or other representation of the equipment or system in question. This may be done, for example, by pointing with a computer mouse connected to a computer of the computer system and/or left or right-clicking a button on the computer mouse. Alternatively other selection means such as by touching a touch-screen display of the given equipment or entering any kind of command via input means such as a computer keyboard, or a microphone.
The user makes a selection from a diagram, table, menu or other representation displayed and, with a single action, such as by one click of a computer mouse, the user opens a communication session with one or more remote technical specialists and by so doing begins remote monitoring of the marine vessel by means of the immediate messaging/conferencing software. The technical specialist is located most often on land, such as at an equipment suppliers factory as schematically depicted 1012 in
Communication from the marine vessel to land may be carried out using services provided by a satellite communication system, as depicted in
When the communication session is thus established between the marine vessel 1 and technical specialist at a remote location 2 immediate messaging and/or conferencing may take place. The user may thus:
The technical specialist may:
The technical specialist can then provide technical information to explain a condition of the equipment or system on the marine vessel, propose a diagnostic routine, propose a maintenance routine, a service or repair measure and so on to the user. The technical specialist may also carry out certain of the routine measures or operations normally carried out using the equipment or system in question.
The technical specialist may naturally speak on a telephone at the same time, or participate in a video link. The video link may or may not be included in the communication session software that sets up the instant messaging and or conferencing. The telephone link may or may not be included in the communication session software that sets up the instant messaging and or conferencing. It should be noted that one or more technical specialists may participate in a communication session. The one or more technical specialists may also be physically located in different places and still participate in a virtual meeting and/or share information such as a GUI from the marine vessel.
The technical specialist can also in addition prepare further technical information, projections or cost analyses for different operating modes, and/or maintenance measures or service actions and communicate them to the user on the marine vessel at a later time. In this aspect of the invention the technical expert provides expert knowledge to assist the user to determine the most economic method for operating and/or maintaining equipment on the marine vessel.
The invention may be applied to equipment or systems installed on the marine vessel such as the examples given, eg 3003a-h. The invention may also be applied to equipment otherwise associated with the marine vessel but not actually installed on the vessel. Thus an equipment or system of interest may be drilling equipment that the marine vessel is positioned in the vicinity of, such as equipment in a barge or other marine vessel nearby, or even equipment that is underwater or on the seabed and in the vicinity of the vessel. It should also be noted that the user may be any authorised person in the close vicinity of the marine vessel. This may include, for example, a diver inspecting the hull of the ship from outside, a person inspecting oil drill or other oil extraction equipment attached to the vessel.
The communication link from marine vessel 1010 to a remote location 1012, 4012 via a satellite receiver on land may be advantageously and economically carried out by means of commercially available satellite services such as any of Inmarsat, Inmarsat B, VSAT, QSAT, NORSAT. In North America similar geo-stationary satellite systems such as L-band or Leo satellite systems may be used. Communications on or near land may alternatively be carried out by means of for example cellular mobile radio systems such as American Mobile Phone System (AMPS), Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) and Total Access Communication System (TACS), digital cellular systems such as Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) based systems and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) based systems (D-AMPS, GSM, PDC, etc.), packet-switched services on cellular systems such as Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Enhanced Data rate for GSM Evolution (EDGE), third generation cellular systems such as CDMA2000, Wideband CDMA (wCDMA) and IMT 2000, and so on.
A satellite based telephone system such as Iridium LLC (Trade Mark), Inmarsat (Trade Mark), Inmarsat I-4, ICO Teledesic and ICO Global Communications, and Loral Space & Communication's system Globalstar (Trade Mark) may also be used for communications from and to the marine vessel). Satellite provided phone systems offering 3G type services such as Broadband Global Area Network provided by Inmarsat are yet another communication means.
The conferencing software may be any software that supports immediate messaging or conferencing that enables sharing a display or application on one computer such that it is displayed on a remote computer. Among commercially available products are AOL Instant Messenger available from America Online, Inc., MSN Messenger or Netmeeting available from Microsoft, and Sametime from Lotus/IBM. It may be particularly advantageous to use Sametime in certain situations. One such example may be address books used and maintained by other computer software in the same organisation which may be shared by Sametime. In addition, Sametime also handles many-to-many communications in a way that is suitable for low bandwidth communications channels, enabling a plurality of technical specialists to share, inform and remotely monitor in the same meeting. This differentiates Sametime from certain other softwares, which may not transfer information so fast as Sametime when working over a low bandwidth communications channel with a plurality of technical specialists connected.
The collected data is made available by the datalogger interface 9022 alternatively 9023 to the RMC 3001. The data may also be made available to additional systems such as a Maintenance System (not shown). Such a Maintenance System may typically be used to present, report, analyze etc. collected data for monitoring, condition based maintenance, scheduling maintenance or repairs etc.
In another preferred embodiment the user logs in to a computer comprised as or connected in some way to the Remote Monitoring and Control Server (RMC) 3001 connected to a communications means such as 9026 on-board the vessel 1010. The user navigates in a program running on the logged in computer or via the RMC to a display showing information and/or one or more graphic or textual representations or schematics of an onboard equipment or system. For example, a display may show a representation of a positioning system, causing controllers such as 3002a and 3002b controlling one or more Azipod units to be displayed. It will be remembered that event and alarm information for equipment on the marine vessel, such as the positioning system equipment, is recorded by the Datalogger 6005.
Referring to
Referring to
In a further advantageous and best use of the invention, a control system including at least an Aspect Integrator Platform supplied by ABB is used to carry out the role of Asset Optimization server 9021,
The Asset Optimization functionality is best implemented as one or more Aspect Systems on the Aspect Integrator Platform (AIP) provided by ABB. The datalogging function of datalogger 6005 (
In carrying out the method of the invention different forms of communication, including wireless communication may be used. One or more of the communications may consist in part of a data communication signal. The data communication signal in part of a data transmission between the marine vessel and another location may be embodied in any data format, dependent in part on whether the data communication signal is encrypted and in what way.
The communications from and to the marine vessel may advantageously be encrypted to maintain privacy and to minimize the possibility of unauthorised access to data communication systems of the marine vessel. The data signals making up the communications may be encrypted in some way. Examples of such encryption, without being limited to such examples, are encryption of:
Approaches to such encryption may include, without being limited to, examples such as:
A computer program product comprising the computer program code and/or software elements for carrying out steps of a method according to the invention may be stored, at least in part, on different mediums that are computer readable. Archive copies may be stored on standard magnetic disks, hard drives, data storage devices in data servers, web servers or as CD or DVD disks, or on magnetic tape. The different parts of this computer program product may, for example at different times, be stored in any of; a volatile Random Access memory (RAM) of a computer or processor, a hard drive, an optical or magneto-optical drive, or in a type of non-volatile memory such as a ROM, PROM, or EPROM device. The computer program product may also be arranged in part as an embedded system in a device. The computer program product may also be arranged in part as a distributed application capable of running on several different computers or computer systems at more or less the same time.
It is also noted that while the above describes exemplifying embodiments of the invention, there are several variations and modifications which may be made to the disclosed solution without departing from the scope of the present invention as defined in the appended claims. As an example, instead of OPC, some other well-known interface for access to real-time data, historical data, and alarm and event data, or any subset thereof, may be used.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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20020856 | Feb 2002 | NO | national |